i ndian Made Foreign Liquor is not a term that promises well. It admits upfront that it is a substitute and probably an in- adequate one given that oxy- moronic Indian-Foreign pairing. Add to that the knowledge that it is made from extra-neutral alcohol dis- tilled from molasses, flavoured and blended to resemble whatever you want, and your expectations will not be high. The exception, of course, is rum, which is made from molasses any- way, and Old Monk has always been justly celebrated as the one really good Indian liquor brand. Is there anything more infuriating than pre- tentious (and greedy) Indian bars that don't stock Old Monk, but keep random international rums? Such places should be named, shamed and spurned till Old Monk is on their menus! Over the years other IMFL has been improving too, thanks to competition from real foreign brands and the grow- ing sophistication of Indian drinking tastes. Some premi- um whiskies are decent (even if, by international standards, their mo- lasses base still make them a kind of rum) and vodkas like Smirnoff are as smooth as you'll get anywhere. I keep hoping that one of the better In- dian wineries will grasp the chal- lenge, which is mostly in terms of getting the licences, to distil real brandy from their wine. Best of all, there are ventures like Amrut Distilleries with their really quite wonderful and authentically made single malt, and now the Goa based Desmondji who can't call their agave spirit tequila for fear of Mexi- cans sending hit squads after them. It is made from the same agave cactus plants though and tastes pret- ty good, as does the orange liqueur they are also making, flavoured with Nagpur oranges, so that all the ingredients for a desi margarita are at hand. But there is one inexplicable gap: why is there no good Indian gin? This is one of the easiest spirits to make - unlike with whisky or tequi- la, the base material doesn't matter. Grain is usual, but molasses will do, since all that's needed is good neu- tral alcohol. This is then flavoured with juniper berries, which can be easily imported (though it should be easy to grow them in the hills) and what are called botanicals, a varied mix of spices and flavourings, many of which, like coriander, cassia and orris root, come from India anyway. The mechanics of this flavouring process can vary, but none of it is rocket science. And gin does not require ageing as whisky and brandy do, so production is faster and cheaper. Gin is also the one spirit with such an intimate connection to India that when Michel Roux, the man behind the creation of the Absolut vodka brand, decided to launch a premium gin that would do for the category what Absolut did for vodka, the name cho- sen was Bombay Sap- phire, and an image of Queen Victoria, Empress of India was prominently displayed on the packaging. Roux and his partners were tapping into the exotic imagery of the Raj, where memoirs of the British in India al- ways have them administering their empire with the help of a constant stream of Pink Gins. This concoction got its name from the way in which the colourless gin was delicately tinted by a few dashes of Angostura bitters. (The British in Malaysia differentiated themselves by calling this a Gin Pahit, from the Malay word for bitter). When Jere- my Tait, a young British man, was sent to work for the HongKong & Shanghai Bank in Asia in the early 1950s, and landed up in Colombo he met an old friend of his father at the Colombo Club who offered him man- go juice. 'I replied, "I think I'd prefer a pink gin." Captain Harper's response was immediate: "I don't know what else your father taught you, but he certainly steered you in the right direction."' Tait's entertaining memoir, The Obedient Banker, proceeds to de- scribe a career across that Asia that seemed to be spent staggering from one pink gin to another. In Japan he teaches a geisha how to mix one. In Singapore, in the days before Lee Kuan Yew made it the antiseptic place it is now, he sips gin slings watching the transvestites on Bugis Street. And on one memo- rable occasion in Juhu in Bom- bay he and the other bachelors throw a party for all the mar- ried couples of the bank where the main refreshment is coconuts filled with gin and plum brandy. The couples are so overcome by this that many have to request retiring rooms to sleep it off. "We thought no more about it until almost a year later when several of the married couples reciprocated by inviting us to Chris- tening parties." In this, as with all the many British alcoholic memories of India, gin features so large for a fairly basic reason - it was a cheap and easy way to get drunk. Whisky was more ex- pensive, rum was seen as a drink for the army and navy, while vodka was still unusual outside Russia. Gin's citrusy, spicy notes also had the ad- vantage of mixing well with other drinks and juices, so it was an ideal way to take in a lot of liquid in a cli- mate where one lost it fast. It was also seen as an acceptable drink for ladies, perhaps because its lack of colour made it seem (deceptively) lighter. Most of all, the British dis- covered it made a brilliant marriage with tonic water, the bittersweet concoction that was originally de- vised as an easy way to take malaria fighting quinine by mixing it with sugar and soda. Gin and tonic had a vague connotation of health, which certainly helped justify knocking it down in quantity. Yet this popularity became the problem. Throughout the history of gin we see alternations between pe- riods of high consumption, followed by equally strong reactions against it. Most drinks go in and out of fash- ion, but only gin seems to do it in such extreme ways. After the 1960s, when expatriates like Tait became scarce in India, a reaction against gin set in. The Indians who still drank it were derided, as Sagari- ka Ghose did in her novel The Gin Drinkers, as overly West- ernised and alienated in their own country: "Gin with soda. Straight or on the rocks. Or with bitter lemon. Gin at the Gymkhana. Gin on the ve- randah. Gin at the club with cocktails at six o' clock. Gin was liq- uid colonialism." Depictions like these, combined with the emergence of vodka as a stylish, less historically loaded, clear spirit, seem to have lead to gin's current sorry status. With few con- sumers, Indian manufacturers did- n't bother investing in upgrading from the really raw tasting, crudely flavoured versions that they keep just to round out their portfolio. Yet a gin revolution is taking place abroad and it is time India caught up with it. We'll look at it in the second part of this column. [email protected] ———✱ Dibeyendu Ganguly ✱——— r omain Wacziarg was all of four months old when he arrived in India, where his father was posted as a commercial attaché at the French consulate in Mumbai. He grew up in the city till he was sent off to France for schooling at the age of six. He never returned to live in India but the connection has remained strong. His father, Francis Wacziarg, has settled in India, quitting the French diplomatic services to join Banque Na- tionale de Paris (BNP) in New Delhi and then start- ing the Neemrana chain of hotels. Romain himself moved to the USA to do a Ph.D. in Economics at Har- vard University in 1992 and is now a professor at the Anderson School of Management, UCLA, where he teaches 'The Business Environment in India,' a course that brings him to the country with a new batch of students every year. "My academic inter- ests are definitely related to my upbringing in India. The question that motivates my scholarship is to un- derstand how we can get countries to develop faster and in a way, that is inclusive," he says. In 1998, when he taught at Stanford University, Wacziarg, in collaboration with Enrico Spolaore of Tufts University, began pursuing a line of enquiry that has always intrigued economists: What explains the vast di?erences in income per capita that are ob- served across countries? Why are these di?erences so persistent over time? India and China may have been richer than Europe when the world was agrarian in the year 1000, says Wacziarg, but things changed de- cisively after the Industrial Revolution. "Countries that were ethnically and culturally closer to England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, tended to adopt the means of production of an industrial soci- ety sooner than others. Ultimately, most countries started to industrialise, but when they did so depend- ed on their cultural distance to Northwestern Eu- rope. This was true within Europe as well," he says. Wacziarg is designated an 'Overseas Citizen of In- dia,' which gives him a certain latitude. For example, he can delve into sensitive issues on the relationship between India's culture and its low per capita income, without raising too many hackles. But then, he does- n't take any qualitative calls on Indian culture in his re- search paper. Unlike the research done by Harvard guru Jared Diamond, whose Pulitzer prize winning work Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies also linked economic dominance to geogra- phy, Wacziarg's research is purely quantitative. Correlating data on a variety of measures of cul- tural differences-language, religion, ethnicity-with global per capita incomes in 1500, 1700, 1820, 1870, 1913 and 1960- Wacziarg seeks to establish that dif- ferences in human characteristics transmitted across generations can affect income differences by creating barriers to the diffusion of innovations, even when they have no direct effect on productivity. "The pat- tern holds not only for current worldwide data but also for estimates of income per capita and genetic distance since 1500," he says. The findings are not counter-intuitive but they do paint a rather dismal picture. It's all very well to know that genetic distance (which is a measurable quantity whose basic unit of analysis is the 'allele') from the UK and US explains differences in per capi- ta income, but what can we do about it? Wacziarg be- lieves that countries that actively seek to bring down barriers to diffusion of innovations, also re- duce the co-efficient that relates culture and per capita income. Japan, for one, has long been a happy exception to Wacziarg's rule and China and India have been surging ahead in recent times by embrac- ing globalization. "These things are not insur- mountable. Significant reductions in income dis- parities could be obtained by encouraging policies that reduce barriers, including efforts to translate and adapt technological as well as institutional in- novations into different traditions and to foster cross-cultural exchanges," he says. Wacziarg likes to start his course at Anderson by asking his students to estimate how long it would take India to catch up with Ameri- ca's per capita income given their current average rates of GDP growth (3% for US, 7% for India) and population growth (1% for US, 2% for India). The answer: 90 years. Given that the income differential is currently of around 13.4 times, India's per capita would have to double at least three times. China, on the other hand, will probably catch up with the USA in 40 years, given its lower population growth of 1%. "The US is always a moving target," says Wacziarg. "If it manages to pull off a series of innovations that re- vives its growth rate, the differential will increase." How does Wacziarg Senior view all this, sitting in Neemrana? "To my Dad, everything that's happen- ing in India seems great," says the younger Wacziarg. "But for the poor, it's a different story. Poverty has reduced in India but inequalities have increased. The only silver lining to the cloud is glob- alization. If that proceeds apace, the story ends on a positive note." [email protected] CMYK Regn. No. MAHENG/2002/6295 Volume 12 Issue No. 6 “Published for the proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. by Mr. R. Krishnamurthy at The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400001 Tel. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax-(022) 2273 1144 and printed by him at The Times of India Suburban Press, Akurli Road, Western Express Highway, Kandivli (E), Mumbai 400101. Tel No: (022) 28872324, 28872930, Fax No (022) 28874230 and Editor: Mr. Vinod Mahanta, (Responsible for the selection of news under PRB Act).© All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.” FEBRUARY 8, 2013 THE ECONOMIC TIMES THINKSTOCK Is a country's per capita income determined by its culture? Romain Wacziarg of UCLA investigates Far-out destination: Sailing in the Marina off Marseilles with hundred other sailboats, speed- boats and yachts. Indian Surprise: Travelling through Amar Kantak forest in Madhya Pradesh lit up with fireflies on a winter night. Bon Vivant mo- ment: Dinner at ’12 Chairs’ restaurant in Shanghai with per- sonal attention from Chef David Laris, Un- forgettable! Outdoors Activity: Off-roading in Aravali off Gurgaon in an Audi SUV Emptied your pockets on: Miele appliances and a German Modular Kitchen at Home Panoramic Views: Flying across the Alps from Marseilles to Frankfurt Best Drive: Gutersloh to Frankfurt Airport in Germany through A5 motorway (Auto Bahn). We covered 345 kilometres in a little over 2 hours Gourmet Delights: Generous helpings of Italian food at Olive Qutub coupled with personal attention by Chef Saby (Sabyasachi Gorai). Risottos, Pastas, Lasagnes, Piz- zas, Tiramisu, it was difficult to figure out where to end Gourmet gaffes: Despite being a vegetarian having three chicken sandwiches unknowingly and not realizing till a colleague pointed it out Street food surprise: Authentic Samosas & Gulab Jamun at Harrods in London Best bar: Patiala peg at the Imperial, Delhi Bazaar Bargains: Bought a Mont Blanc Pen at 35% discount from the Duty free shop in Munich, Germany Goofy traveller moment: Stranded in Italy for seven days because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the subsequent chaos Traveller Tips: Medicines with prescription, iPad and Headphones, Haldiram’s ready to eat packets and an extra mobile phone Interesting Stranger: Met an interesting senior gentleman at a social get together, kept speaking to him on various topics for a long time only to found out later that he was one of the top guys from Tata Sons Wanderlust Etiquette Etiquette While traveling overseas for business, my local colleagues ‘split the cheque’ in a restaurant. Please advise. In India, splitting the check when dining out with a colleague is a new concept. However, in many parts of the world ‘going Dutch’ is the norm. Splitting the check when dining with colleagues is directly linked to how a culture perceives business relationships. Monochronic cultures being pro-transactional, businesspersons don’t mix their professional and personal relation- ships. In these cultures you are not expected to pay for your colleagues when dining out e.g. North Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. On the other hand, Polychronic cultures being pro- partnership, they view business relationships as life-long. In these cultures, business meals are seen as occasions to build better bonds. Usual- ly, the senior-most person pays for the group and ‘going Dutch’ is considered rude, even taboo e.g. Indian sub-continent, Italy, Greece, Middle-East, China and Latin America. When dining out with colleagues, the common ways to split the cheque are: Equal share: Post-tax and after adding the tip, the bill amount is equally divided amongst the diners. Informal ‘fair share’: If you have expensive tastes, you are expected to pay extra over and above the ‘equal share’ e.g. you enjoyed a cou- ple of cocktails while your fellow diners were teetotalers or you ordered a lobster while the others ate cheaper vegetarian / chicken dishes. Individual bills: In some cultures, diners ask the server for individual bills when sitting down for a meal together. Here, each person set- tles his own cheque, including the tip. Tip: Ask your local colleague about the accepted practice in his/her culture - don’t assume that as a visitor, your host is expected to pay for you. SHITAL KAKKAR MEHRA is the author of Business Etiquette: A Guide For The Indian Professional THE DUTCH FACTOR Dhananjay Chaturvedi MD, Miele India Dhananjay Chaturvedi with family Diffusion of Innovations Liquid Colonialism Liquid Colonialism Vikram Doctor on the wicked joys of Gin *CDMM80213//04/K/1* *CDMM80213//04/K/1* CDMM80213/1R1/04/K/1 *CDMM80213//04/Y/1* *CDMM80213//04/Y/1* CDMM80213/1R1/04/Y/1 *CDMM80213//04/M/1* *CDMM80213//04/M/1* CDMM80213/1R1/04/M/1 *CDMM80213//04/C/1* *CDMM80213//04/C/1* CDMM80213/1R1/04/C/1
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indian Made Foreign Liquor isnot a term that promises well.It admits upfront that it is asubstitute and probably an in-adequate one given that oxy-
moronic Indian-Foreign pairing.Add to that the knowledge that it ismade from extra-neutral alcohol dis-tilled from molasses, flavoured andblended to resemble whatever youwant, and your expectations will notbe high.
The exception, of course, is rum,which is made from molasses any-way, and Old Monk has always beenjustly celebrated as the one reallygood Indian liquor brand. Is thereanything more infuriating than pre-tentious (and greedy) Indian barsthat don't stock Old Monk, but keeprandom international rums? Suchplaces should be named, shamedand spurned till Old Monk is ontheir menus!
Over the years other IMFL hasbeen improving too,thanks to competitionfrom real foreignbrands and the grow-ing sophistication ofIndian drinking tastes. Some premi-um whiskies are decent (even if, byinternational standards, their mo-lasses base still make them a kind ofrum) and vodkas like Smirnoff areas smooth as you'll get anywhere. Ikeep hoping that one of the better In-dian wineries will grasp the chal-lenge, which is mostly in terms ofgetting the licences, to distil realbrandy from their wine.
Best of all, there are ventures likeAmrut Distilleries with their reallyquite wonderful and authenticallymade single malt, and now the Goabased Desmondji who can't call theiragave spirit tequila for fear of Mexi-cans sending hit squads after them.It is made from the same agave cactus plants though and tastes pret-ty good, as does the orange liqueurthey are also making, flavoured with Nagpur oranges, so that all the ingredients for a desi margaritaare at hand.
But there is one inexplicable gap:why is there no good Indian gin?
This is one of the easiest spirits tomake - unlike with whisky or tequi-la, the base material doesn't matter.Grain is usual, but molasses will do,since all that's needed is good neu-tral alcohol. This is then flavouredwith juniper berries, which can beeasily imported (though it should beeasy to grow them in the hills) andwhat are called botanicals, a variedmix of spices and flavourings, manyof which, like coriander, cassia andorris root, come from India anyway.The mechanics of this flavouringprocess can vary, but none of it isrocket science. And gin does not require ageing as whisky andbrandy do, so production is fasterand cheaper.
Gin is also the one spirit with suchan intimate connection to India thatwhen Michel Roux, the man behindthe creation of the Absolut vodkabrand, decided to launch a premiumgin that would do for the category
what Absolut did forvodka, the name cho-sen was Bombay Sap-phire, and an imageof Queen Victoria,
Empress of India was prominentlydisplayed on the packaging. Rouxand his partners were tapping intothe exotic imagery of the Raj, wherememoirs of the British in India al-ways have them administering theirempire with the help of a constantstream of Pink Gins.
This concoction got its name fromthe way in which the colourless ginwas delicately tinted by a few dashesof Angostura bitters. (The British inMalaysia differentiated themselvesby calling this a Gin Pahit, from theMalay word for bitter). When Jere-my Tait, a young British man, wassent to work for the HongKong &Shanghai Bank in Asia in the early1950s, and landed up in Colombo hemet an old friend of his father at theColombo Club who offered him man-go juice. 'I replied, "I think I'd prefera pink gin." Captain Harper's response was immediate: "I don'tknow what else your father taughtyou, but he certainly steered you inthe right direction."'
Tait's entertaining memoir, TheObedient Banker, proceeds to de-scribe a career across that Asia thatseemed to be spent staggering fromone pink gin to another. In Japan heteaches a geisha how to mix one. InSingapore, in the days before LeeKuan Yew made it the antisepticplace it is now, he sips gin slingswatching the transvestites onBugis Street. And on one memo-rable occasion in Juhu in Bom-bay he and the other bachelorsthrow a party for all the mar-ried couples of the bank wherethe main refreshment is coconutsfilled with gin and plum brandy. Thecouples are so overcome by this thatmany have to request retiring roomsto sleep it off. "We thought no moreabout it until almost a year laterwhen several of the married couplesreciprocated by inviting us to Chris-tening parties."
In this, as with all the manyBritish alcoholic memories of India,gin features so large for a fairly basicreason - it was a cheap and easy wayto get drunk. Whisky was more ex-pensive, rum was seen as a drink forthe army and navy, while vodka wasstill unusual outside Russia. Gin'scitrusy, spicy notes also had the ad-vantage of mixing well with otherdrinks and juices, so it was an idealway to take in a lot of liquid in a cli-mate where one lost it fast. It wasalso seen as an acceptable drink forladies, perhaps because its lack ofcolour made it seem (deceptively)lighter. Most of all, the British dis-covered it made a brilliant marriagewith tonic water, the bittersweetconcoction that was originally de-
vised as an easy way to take malariafighting quinine by mixing it withsugar and soda. Gin and tonic had avague connotation of health, whichcertainly helped justify knocking itdown in quantity.
Yet this popularity became theproblem. Throughout the history ofgin we see alternations between pe-riods of high consumption, followedby equally strong reactions againstit. Most drinks go in and out of fash-ion, but only gin seems to do it insuch extreme ways. After the 1960s,
when expatriates like Tait becamescarce in India, a reaction againstgin set in. The Indians who still
drank it were derided, as Sagari-ka Ghose did in her novel The
Gin Drinkers, as overly West-ernised and alienated intheir own country: "Ginwith soda. Straight or on
the rocks. Or with bitter lemon. Gin at the Gymkhana. Gin on the ve-randah. Gin at the club with cocktails at six o' clock. Gin was liq-uid colonialism."
Depictions like these, combinedwith the emergence of vodka as astylish, less historically loaded,clear spirit, seem to have lead to gin'scurrent sorry status. With few con-sumers, Indian manufacturers did-n't bother investing in upgradingfrom the really raw tasting, crudelyflavoured versions that they keepjust to round out their portfolio. Yeta gin revolution is taking placeabroad and it is time India caught upwith it. We'll look at it in the secondpart of this column.
———✱ Dibeyendu Ganguly ✱———
r omain Wacziarg was all of four months oldwhen he arrived in India, where his fatherwas posted as a commercial attaché at theFrench consulate in Mumbai. He grew up
in the city till he was sent off to France for schoolingat the age of six. He never returned to live in Indiabut the connection has remained strong. His father,Francis Wacziarg, has settled in India, quitting theFrench diplomatic services to join Banque Na-tionale de Paris (BNP) in New Delhi and then start-ing the Neemrana chain of hotels. Romain himself
moved to the USA to do a Ph.D. in Economics at Har-vard University in 1992 and is now a professor at theAnderson School of Management, UCLA, where heteaches 'The Business Environment in India,' acourse that brings him to the country with a newbatch of students every year. "My academic inter-ests are definitely related to my upbringing in India.The question that motivates my scholarship is to un-derstand how we can get countries to develop fasterand in a way, that is inclusive," he says.
In 1998, when he taught at Stanford University,Wacziarg, in collaboration with Enrico Spolaore ofTufts University, began pursuing a line of enquirythat has always intrigued economists: What explainsthe vast di?erences in income per capita that are ob-served across countries? Why are these di?erences sopersistent over time? India and China may have beenricher than Europe when the world was agrarian inthe year 1000, says Wacziarg, but things changed de-cisively after the Industrial Revolution. "Countriesthat were ethnically and culturally closer to England,the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, tended toadopt the means of production of an industrial soci-ety sooner than others. Ultimately, most countriesstarted to industrialise, but when they did so depend-ed on their cultural distance to Northwestern Eu-rope. This was true within Europe as well," he says.
Wacziarg is designated an 'Overseas Citizen of In-dia,' which gives him a certain latitude. For example,he can delve into sensitive issues on the relationshipbetween India's culture and its low per capita income,without raising too many hackles. But then, he does-
n ' t
take any qualitative calls on Indian culture in his re-search paper. Unlike the research done by Harvardguru Jared Diamond, whose Pulitzer prize winningwork Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of HumanSocieties also linked economic dominance to geogra-phy, Wacziarg's research is purely quantitative.
Correlating data on a variety of measures of cul-tural differences-language, religion, ethnicity-withglobal per capita incomes in 1500,1700, 1820, 1870, 1913 and 1960-Wacziarg seeks to establish that dif-ferences in human characteristicstransmitted across generations canaffect income differences by creatingbarriers to the diffusion of innovations, even whenthey have no direct effect on productivity. "The pat-tern holds not only for current worldwide data butalso for estimates of income per capita and geneticdistance since 1500," he says.
The findings are not counter-intuitive but they dopaint a rather dismal picture. It's all very well toknow that genetic distance (which is a measurablequantity whose basic unit of analysis is the 'allele')from the UK and US explains differences in per capi-ta income, but what can we do about it? Wacziarg be-lieves that countries that actively seek to bringdown barriers to diffusion of innovations, also re-duce the co-efficient that relates culture and percapita income. Japan, for one, has long been a happyexception to Wacziarg's rule and China and Indiahave been surging ahead in recent times by embrac-ing globalization. "These things are not insur-
mountable. Significant reductions in income dis-parities could be obtained by encouraging policiesthat reduce barriers, including efforts to translateand adapt technological as well as institutional in-novations into different traditions and to fostercross-cultural exchanges," he says.
Wacziarg likes to start his course at Anderson byasking his students to estimate how long it would
take India to catch up with Ameri-ca's per capita income given theircurrent average rates of GDPgrowth (3% for US, 7% for India)and population growth (1% for US,2% for India). The answer: 90 years.
Given that the income differential is currently ofaround 13.4 times, India's per capita would have todouble at least three times. China, on the otherhand, will probably catch up with the USA in 40years, given its lower population growth of 1%. "TheUS is always a moving target," says Wacziarg. "If itmanages to pull off a series of innovations that re-vives its growth rate, the differential will increase."
How does Wacziarg Senior view all this, sitting inNeemrana? "To my Dad, everything that's happen-ing in India seems great," says the youngerWacziarg. "But for the poor, it's a different story.Poverty has reduced in India but inequalities haveincreased. The only silver lining to the cloud is glob-alization. If that proceeds apace, the story ends on apositive note."
CMYK
RReeggnn.. NNoo.. MMAAHHEENNGG//22000022//66229955 VVoolluummee 1122 IIssssuuee NNoo.. 66 “Published for the proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. by Mr. R. Krishnamurthy at The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400001 Tel. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax-(022) 2273 1144 and printed by him at The Times of India Suburban Press, Akurli Road, Western Express Highway, Kandivli (E), Mumbai 400101.Tel No: (022) 28872324, 28872930, Fax No (022) 28874230 and Editor: Mr. Vinod Mahanta, (Responsible for the selection of news under PRB Act).© All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.”
FEBRUARY 8, 2013 THE ECONOMIC TIMES
THINKSTOCK
Is a country's percapita income
determined by itsculture? Romain
Wacziarg of UCLAinvestigates
Far-out destination: Sailing in the Marina off Marseilles with hundred other sailboats, speed-boats and yachts.
Indian Surprise: Travelling through Amar Kantak forest in Madhya Pradesh lit up with fireflies on awinter night.
Bon Vivant mo-ment: Dinner at ’12Chairs’ restaurant inShanghai with per-sonal attention fromChef David Laris, Un-forgettable!
Outdoors Activity: Off-roading in Aravali off Gurgaonin an Audi SUV
Emptied your pockets on: Miele appliances and a German Modular Kitchen at Home
Panoramic Views: Flying across the Alps from Marseilles to Frankfurt
Best Drive: Gutersloh to Frankfurt Airport in Germanythrough A5 motorway (Auto Bahn). We covered 345kilometres in a little over 2 hours
Gourmet Delights: Generous helpings of Italian foodat Olive Qutub coupled with personal attention by ChefSaby (Sabyasachi Gorai). Risottos, Pastas, Lasagnes, Piz-zas, Tiramisu, it was difficult to figure out where to end
Gourmet gaffes: Despite being a vegetarian havingthree chicken sandwiches unknowingly and not realizing till a colleague pointed it out
Street food surprise: Authentic Samosas & Gulab Jamun at Harrods in London
Best bar: Patiala peg at the Imperial, Delhi
Bazaar Bargains: Bought a Mont Blanc Pen at 35%discount from the Duty free shop in Munich, Germany
Goofy traveller moment: Stranded in Italy for sevendays because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland andthe subsequent chaos
Traveller Tips: Medicines with prescription, iPad andHeadphones, Haldiram’s ready to eat packets and anextra mobile phone
Interesting Stranger: Met an interesting senior gentleman at a social get together, kept speaking tohim on various topics for a long time only to found outlater that he was one of the top guys from Tata Sons
Wanderlust
EtiquetteEtiquetteWhile traveling overseas for business, mylocal colleagues ‘split the cheque’ in arestaurant. Please advise.
In India, splitting the check when dining outwith a colleague is a new concept. However, in many parts of the world ‘going Dutch’ is the norm. Splitting the check when dining with colleaguesis directly linked to how a culture perceivesbusiness relationships. Monochronic culturesbeing pro-transactional, businesspersons don’tmix their professional and personal relation-ships. In these cultures you are not expected topay for your colleagues when dining out e.g.North Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. Onthe other hand, Polychronic cultures being pro-partnership, they view business relationships aslife-long. In these cultures, business meals areseen as occasions to build better bonds. Usual-ly, the senior-most person pays for the groupand ‘going Dutch’ is considered rude, eventaboo e.g. Indian sub-continent, Italy, Greece,Middle-East, China and Latin America.
When dining out with colleagues, the common ways to split the cheque are:
� Equal share: Post-tax and after adding thetip, the bill amount is equally divided amongstthe diners. � Informal ‘fair share’: If you have expensivetastes, you are expected to pay extra over andabove the ‘equal share’ e.g. you enjoyed a cou-ple of cocktails while your fellow diners wereteetotalers or you ordered a lobster while theothers ate cheaper vegetarian / chicken dishes. � Individual bills: In some cultures, diners askthe server for individual bills when sitting down
for a meal together. Here, each person set-tles his own cheque, including the tip.
Tip: Ask your local colleague about theaccepted practice in his/her culture -don’t assume that as a visitor, your
host is expected to pay for you.
SHITAL KAKKAR MEHRA is the author of
Business Etiquette: A Guide For
The Indian Professional
THE DUTCH FACTOR
DhananjayChaturvedi
MD,Miele India
Dhananjay Chaturvedi with family
Diffusion ofInnovations
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*CDMM80213/ /04/K/1*CDMM80213/1R1/04/K/1
*CDMM80213/ /04/Y/1*
*CDMM80213/ /04/Y/1*CDMM80213/1R1/04/Y/1
*CDMM80213/ /04/M/1*
*CDMM80213/ /04/M/1*CDMM80213/1R1/04/M/1
*CDMM80213/ /04/C/1*
*CDMM80213/ /04/C/1*CDMM80213/1R1/04/C/1
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